Scotland by Alastair Reid

It was a day peculiar to this piece of the planetwhen larks rose on long thin strings of singingand the air shifted with the shimmer of actual angels.Greenness entered the body. The grassesshivered with presences and sunlightstayed like a halo on hair and heather and hills.Walking into town, I saw, in a radiant raincoat,the woman from the fish-shop. 'What a day it is!'cried I, like a sunstruck madman.And what did she have to say for it?Her brow grew bleak, her ancestors raged in their gravesas she spoke with their ancient misery:'We'll pay for it, we'll pay for it, we'll pay for it!'